BACKGROUND The aim of the study was to describe the health-related quality of life of Canarian population using information from the Canary Island Health Survey and three observational studies developed in the Canary Islands. METHODS A descriptive analysis was carried out on a sample of 5.549 Canarian citizens using information from 2004 Canary Island Health Survey and three observational stu...

The broad belt of intraplate volcanism in the East Atlantic between 25 and 37 N is proposed to have formed by two adjacent hotspot tracks (the Madeira and Canary tracks) that possess systematically different isotopic signatures reflecting different mantle source compositions. To test this model, Hf isotope ratios from volcanic rocks from all individual islands and all major seamounts are presen...

Chloroplast microsatellites are becoming increasingly popular markers for population genetic studies in plants, but there has been little focus on their potential for demographic inference. In this work the utility of chloroplast microsatellites for the study of population expansions was explored. First, we investigated the power of mismatch distribution analysis and the F(S) test with coalesce...

The Volcanic Island Clastic Apron Project (VICAP) entails a case history study of a coupled system, "oceanic island volcaniclastic apron". The source area has a long-term record of chemically distinct rocks/deposits with physically datable mineral phases, so that the submarine and subaerial growth and destruction is reflected in sufficient detail in the volcaniclastic apron. The seamount/island...

The seagrass Cymodocea nodosa forms a unique community in the Canary Islands, where it is classified as an endangered species. Biogeographic theory predicts that clonal species on islands near their distributional limits might show lower proportions of sexual (versus clonal) reproduction, lower genetic diversity, and higher differentiation. We addressed these hypotheses by comparing the genetic...

Agricultural producers are interested in using biomass available on farms to substitute fossil fuels for heat production. However, energy crops like reed canary grass contain high nitrogen (N), sulfur (S), potassium (K) and other ash-forming elements which lead to increased emissions of gases and particulate matter (PM) and ash-related operational problems (e.g., melting) during combustion. To ...

High-tech coal mine canary One of coal mining's earliest systems for warning of the presence of methane gas, the canary in the coal mine, though low-tech, was extremely effective and rather easy to read: if the bird died, miners had to get out of the shaft. Today, the search for means to monitor for signs of danger continues. At an annual checkup, one could be given a whole battery of tests, ea...

The Canary archipelago comprises seven main volcanic islands and several islets that form a chain extending for ~ 500 km across the eastern Atlantic, between latitudes 27°N and 30°N, with its eastern edge only 100 km from the NW African coast (Figures 1 & 2). The Canary Islands developed in a geodynamic setting characterized by Jurassic oceanic lithosphere formed during the fi rst stage of open...

A RP-HPLC method with photodiode array detection (DAD) was developed to separate, identify and quantify simultaneously the most representative phenolic compounds present in Madeira and Canary Islands wines. The optimized chromatographic method was carefully validated in terms of linearity, precision, accuracy and sensitivity. A high repeatability and a good stability of phenolics retention time...

Code injection attacks that target the control-data of an application have been prevalent amongst exploit writers for over 20 years. Today however, these attacks are getting increasingly harder for attackers to successfully exploit due to numerous countermeasures that are deployed by modern operating systems. We believe that this fact will drive exploit writers away from classic control-data at...